The Penalty Part 24

"Twelve minutes," said West gravely.

"By the clock?"

"By a dollar watch.... Miss Ferris, I haven't done right. I'm not doing right."

This came very suddenly. He had lowered his fine head and was frowning,

"I'm the man who's been sending you flowers. I didn't know it was wrong.

I'm not a gentleman. But once I'd seen you, I could never see flowers without thinking of you, so I kept sending them, hoping that they would give you pleasure for their own sake. I had no business even to look at you. To win the kind of race I'm up against, a man ought to keep his eyes in the boat, and not look right or left till his race is won or lost. And even then it ought to be right or left that he looks, and not up, and certainly not down. I didn't keep my eyes in the boat. I looked up, 'way up, and saw you, and caught a crab that threw the whole boat out of trim. I've no excuse, only this--that I haven't ever before even looked right or left or down. But it's all right now. n.o.body's hurt. I won't come any more to watch over you. The lines are closing round Blizzard, and he knows it. His claws are pulled. He's got to toe a chalk-line, and you're as safe with him as with the Bishop of London."

Barbara said nothing. She felt very unhappy.

"One thing more. As long as I did forget the work in hand, as long as I did look up, why, I'd like to thank G.o.d, in your presence, that it was you I saw. Because in all the whole world there is n.o.body so beautiful or so blind."

He thrust out his hand almost roughly, caught hers, said good-by, and turned to go.

"Please wait," said Barbara. And she said it quite contrary to reason, which told her that it would be kinder to let the young man go without comments.

"You've done nothing wrong," she went on, "and I can't help being pleased by the flowers and knowing that you think I am all sorts of things that I'm not. If you really like me a good deal, don't go away looking as if the world had come to an end. I think you are a fine person, and I shall always be glad to be your friend."

There was agony in West's eyes. "My friends.h.i.+p," he said, "can never be any special pleasure to you. And seeing you--even once a year--would keep alive things that hurt me, and that never ought to have been born, and that were better dead."

"'Faint heart--'" Barbara began, and could have bitten out her tongue, since she had so often promised herself that she would never again encourage anybody.

The agony died in Harry West's eyes, and there came instead a look of great gentleness, compa.s.sion, and understanding.

"May I say things to you that are none of my business?" he asked. She nodded briefly, and he went on: "You mustn't say things like that. You have a race to row, too, but your beautiful eyes are all over the place!"

"I knew I was a rotter," said Barbara, "but I didn't know it was obvious to everybody."

"To eyes," said West gently, "in a certain condition lots of things are obvious that other people wouldn't see. May I still say things?"

"Don't spare me."

"You love to attract men. And if you happen to hurt them, you think you are a rotter. That isn't true. You're being pulled two ways. Art pulls you one--the way you _think_ you want to go--and nature pulls you the way you really want to go. Men attract you to a certain extent. I can almost feel that--and you tire of them, and think it's because you haven't got the capacity for really caring. That isn't true either. You have infinite capacities for caring, but as yet you haven't been attracted to the man you are really going to care for."

Barbara looked him straight in the eyes. "How do you know I haven't?"

He returned the look, as if doubting what he should say or do. Then he drew a deep breath to steady himself.

"Perhaps you have. But I know very well that it is not the man you think, at this moment. You are in the hunting stage, and you didn't know it. Now that you do know--unless I am greatly mistaken--I think you will try very hard not to hurt people, not to let them have wild dreams of something doing in the future."

"But if I really think--"

"Then be secret until you _know_."

"And if everything that is me seems to be going out to a certain man--"

"Then be secret until it has really gone out to him."

"I don't know why I let you talk to me like this."

"There you go again," he said, and she bit her lips. "It is very awful for me," he said, "to think that I have raised my voice in any criticism or disparagement of you."

"Oh, it's all true, and it's all deserved."

"But you are like that. And all at the same time it's your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, and for the right man, when he comes along, it will be his greatest treasure.... I don't like to say good-by. It comes hard."

"If I said, 'Don't say good-by,' would I be breaking the rules?"

"Yes," he said, "for I could never be the right man."

[Ill.u.s.tration: When Bubbles had trotted off, she dropped into her chair and cried.]

"Not even if--"

"Not even if--and you will have forgotten any kindness that you felt for me, while I am still wondering why the city is so empty, that once seemed so full."

The tears sprang into Barbara's eyes. "Is there anything about me that you don't know?" she asked bitterly.

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Do you know that if you asked me to marry you, I should say yes?"

"And I know that I am not going to ask you. There are two reasons. You don't love me. And I do love you."

Her arms dropped limply to her sides.

"And it shall never be said of me," he said proudly, "that I dragged any one down.... Will you promise me something?"

"If you care to trust me to keep promises or to do anything that's right and honest."

"Only promise to keep your eyes in the boat. Don't help a poor dog of a man into love with you. And don't help yourself into love with him. When the right man comes along, he will _make_ you love him, and then you will be sure."

"I will promise," said Barbara simply, "and I never knew how rotten I was. And I'm glad you've told me. If it's any comfort to you--you've helped. And n.o.body ever helped before. I shall always be proud to remember that you loved me. And I'll keep my eyes in the boat."

"And that," said Mr. West, "is where I'll keep mine, only, if it's nothing to you, I'll remember sometimes how the moon looked that time I looked up."

She stood uncertain.

"It's kind of awkward," he said, "sometimes to make a clean break. Good luck to you. And don't feel sorry about me. And be true to yourself. And if you ever really need me for anything tell Bubbles. He knows where to find me, when anybody does."

A few minutes later Barbara was asking Bubbles if he happened to know Mr. Harry West's address.

"He won't be coming back here," she said, "and I want to send him a book."

"I'll deliver it," said Bubbles. "He don't keep no regular address. You have to catch him on the run."

"Very well," she said, "take him this, with my very best thanks and my very best wishes."